List of delinquent taxpayers

View the names of property owners who have escaped paying taxes for eight years or longer. The list also includes addresses of the delinquent properties.

Click here to read the list.

The Mecklenburg tax collector's office compiled the report, which details $6.6 million in uncollected taxes, after complaints that bills were going unpaid for years.

The total reflects only a small percentage of the more than $1.3 billion the county collects annually. But some city and county officials say tax collectors should more vigorously try to collect the money.

The report shows 1,299 properties and more than 1,000 names of owners.

You can help us review the report.

Tips, questions, concerns?

Send us an e-mail.

- Doug Miller

Report back taxes to credit agencies?

Mecklenburg County Tax Collector Neal Dixon says he is considering reporting delinquencies to credit agencies if the tactic is found to be legally viable.

The idea is among several outlined in a newly released memo addressing concerns that more than 1,000 property owners have unpaid tax bills at least eight years old.

Click here to read the memo.

Among the other proposals to collect the unpaid $6.6 million in back taxes:

- Equipping tax collectors with more mapping software to locate properties.

- More marketing to raise awareness of delinquent taxpayers.

- Streamlining how the county identifies bidders for foreclosed properties.

Dixon notes the county's tax collection rate exceeds 99.35% for one-year delinquencies, and 99.90% within 10 years. (Each year, the county collects more than $1.3 billion.)

But County Commissioner Bill James asked for the report on back taxes after someone complained about an uptown condominium owner who hadn't paid property taxes for 12 years.

Click here to see a map of properties deliquent more than eight years.

- Doug Miller

Clodfelter: 'Charlotte's an outlier'

That's why Charlotte Democrat Dan Clodfelter, co-chair of the Senate finance committee says his plan to change the state's tax rules would cut city collections so dramatically.

Businesses here pay license taxes totaling more than twice the amount collected by the next-biggest city, Raleigh.

“A Wal-Mart in Charlotte may pay a $10,000 tax. Wal-Mart in another city may pay a $50 tax,” he said. “You guys are so far out of the range of everybody else.”

State legislators are considering abolishing the local license fee as part of a group of tax changes tied to a particularly difficult budget.

Opponents of the business tax say it is confusing and levied many different ways across the state. They complain that it leads to double-taxation in some cases.

For most cities, the legislature's proposed tax changes wouldn't be painful, Clodfelter said. He said for those cities, the lost revenues would be offset by substitute taxes under consideration, including the expansion of the sales tax base.

But Charlotte is different.

How different?

Click here to read how much cities collected for business licenses.

The Department of Revenue data for 2006-07 shows Charlotte businesses paid $17,663,113.

Others in the seven-figure range:

Raleigh: $5,962,920

Greensboro: $3,267,431

Durham: $2,585,946

Winston-Salem: $2,308,525

Wilmington: $1,656,746

Cary: $1,463,554

Hickory: $1,110,078

Concord: $1,047,246

Asheville: $1,040,814

- Julia Oliver/Doug Miller

Perdue: Pass emergency 1-cent sales tax

Gov. Beverly Perdue told legislative leaders today she wants a 1-cent sales tax increase and a total tax hike package of $1.6 billion to balance the budget.

Perdue, a Democrat, met with lawmakers at the Executive Mansion and gave them a list of tax and other revenue options that she would like to see passed. It was an effort to help break the impasse between Democratic Senate and House leaders over what taxes to increase and how much.

Highlights of Perdue's wish list include: an "emergency" 1-cent increase in the sales tax that would expire in October 2010, an emergency income tax surcharge on single taxpayers who earn more than $500,000 and married couples filing jointly making more than $1 million.

Perdue wants a 50-cent-per-pack increase in cigarette taxes, down from the $1-per-pack she requested in March, plus 2-cents-per-can more on beer and a 2 percent increase on alcohol.

The list included several tax increases that would take effect in the fall of next year, including taxes on some services (warranties, installations, repairs) and a tax increase on "luxury services" such as cosmetic surgery, limousines and chartered flights.

Click here to read Perdue's letter to lawmakers and wish list.

- Mark Johnson